As you may or may not know about me, I work in IT. In a small office, for a big company, in North Wales. So when I get home from that small slice of hell, I like to unwind, take my mind off the fact that I have to go back tomorrow and if I can get away with it, play an hour or two of a game.
So in order to escape being trapped in a small dark place looking at fluorescent screens, I go home, trap myself in a room with 3 24" glowing behemoth screens, and play a game called: LIFE IN BUNKER. A game about having to live in a dark, small, underground bunker.
Life imitates art then?
The game is like a more complete version of Fallout Shelter, in an artistic 3d view with rotating camera controls and third person god view - standard RTS so far. The game has clearly taken some inspiration from Minecraft too, as you send your first workers out to dig away at the soft rocks in the hopes of finding a resource plot to start mining.
It all seemed simple in the beginning. The game for me started without tutorials - I am a man, I don't need instructions - within a half hour I'd started working it out, assigning everyone suitable roles, sending them out digging and weirdly hoovering it up (yeah) and so on. I was on a roll and started wondering if the game was a bit too easy to be honest, the resources were there, mining and coming in nicely, the air clean, the earth quakes and molemen a minor inconvenience. I decided to triple speed it up to get some progress underway. That was my first mistake - Although a very practical tool once you know what you're doing, not a great idea for the beginner noob that hadn't been incubating the next generation or preparing for the crew that's working so well to suddenly reach retirement age - D'Oh.
So my first bunker fast became an old peoples home, with no one left to manage the chores, fix the lights, the air con, or hoover up the dead (yeah, seriously). That was the learning curve for me. Next attempt I realised that I could process the raw materials I'd been harvesting a lot faster than I was before with multiple processors (I'm sure I could only have one first time...)
So far, not seen a single bug, the game play is fun, frantic at times and requires patience, it's multi tiered micro management and time management as you try to last 50 rotations before the vault doors open, generations live and die in the bunker, molemen turn up for a slapping match, engineers can also be janitors and everything can be cleaned up using the hoover - see mum, told you the hoover cleans up the dishes.
The art style is unique enough to stand out, but subtle enough to not be this games only gimmick, and the gameplay proves that hands down. One of the more fun indie titles I've been playing.
And that leads me on to title two in this short review, I found a sneaky copy of ClusterTruck - a pre alpha release I suspect, hugely under-finished, but mark my words, in the next year, it's set to be the next Goat Simulator. It's one of those games unlike anything else, to explain it to someone wouldn't do it justice. But here goes... You play a person (i think - you don't have a body yet) that starts atop a truck. The goal is in sight, reach that finish line and you proceed to level 2. Simple. Until the trucks start going mental and colliding with each other and the environment, your skills come into play here, jump, sprint, slow time - cause we can all do that right? The risk, the floor is lava basically (not literally)
It's in the menus that you'll be able to unlock more skills, like jet packs, ground dissolve etc, but sadly these weren't available for testing yet.
It's a short review as currently there's very little content to discuss, art style is very Unreal Engine 4 - beautifully lit, like painted objects, or blank white, no characters, vast white abyss, few mountains and a blocky white truck or 15 and you've got it all right now. Simplicity is a beautiful thing in my opinion, not every game has to look like The Witcher 3 - which personally I didn't enjoy as much as everyone else seemed to - not my thing I guess, but game of the year it wasn't in this gamers opinion, control system is still an abomination and the gui for managing everything leaves too much to be desired. Anyway, back on track, ClusterTruck - one to watch.
So in order to escape being trapped in a small dark place looking at fluorescent screens, I go home, trap myself in a room with 3 24" glowing behemoth screens, and play a game called: LIFE IN BUNKER. A game about having to live in a dark, small, underground bunker.
Life imitates art then?
The game is like a more complete version of Fallout Shelter, in an artistic 3d view with rotating camera controls and third person god view - standard RTS so far. The game has clearly taken some inspiration from Minecraft too, as you send your first workers out to dig away at the soft rocks in the hopes of finding a resource plot to start mining.
It all seemed simple in the beginning. The game for me started without tutorials - I am a man, I don't need instructions - within a half hour I'd started working it out, assigning everyone suitable roles, sending them out digging and weirdly hoovering it up (yeah) and so on. I was on a roll and started wondering if the game was a bit too easy to be honest, the resources were there, mining and coming in nicely, the air clean, the earth quakes and molemen a minor inconvenience. I decided to triple speed it up to get some progress underway. That was my first mistake - Although a very practical tool once you know what you're doing, not a great idea for the beginner noob that hadn't been incubating the next generation or preparing for the crew that's working so well to suddenly reach retirement age - D'Oh.
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| Dropped your dinner? No problem for the Suck-o-matic 3000! |
So my first bunker fast became an old peoples home, with no one left to manage the chores, fix the lights, the air con, or hoover up the dead (yeah, seriously). That was the learning curve for me. Next attempt I realised that I could process the raw materials I'd been harvesting a lot faster than I was before with multiple processors (I'm sure I could only have one first time...)
So far, not seen a single bug, the game play is fun, frantic at times and requires patience, it's multi tiered micro management and time management as you try to last 50 rotations before the vault doors open, generations live and die in the bunker, molemen turn up for a slapping match, engineers can also be janitors and everything can be cleaned up using the hoover - see mum, told you the hoover cleans up the dishes.
The art style is unique enough to stand out, but subtle enough to not be this games only gimmick, and the gameplay proves that hands down. One of the more fun indie titles I've been playing.
And that leads me on to title two in this short review, I found a sneaky copy of ClusterTruck - a pre alpha release I suspect, hugely under-finished, but mark my words, in the next year, it's set to be the next Goat Simulator. It's one of those games unlike anything else, to explain it to someone wouldn't do it justice. But here goes... You play a person (i think - you don't have a body yet) that starts atop a truck. The goal is in sight, reach that finish line and you proceed to level 2. Simple. Until the trucks start going mental and colliding with each other and the environment, your skills come into play here, jump, sprint, slow time - cause we can all do that right? The risk, the floor is lava basically (not literally)
It's in the menus that you'll be able to unlock more skills, like jet packs, ground dissolve etc, but sadly these weren't available for testing yet.
It's a short review as currently there's very little content to discuss, art style is very Unreal Engine 4 - beautifully lit, like painted objects, or blank white, no characters, vast white abyss, few mountains and a blocky white truck or 15 and you've got it all right now. Simplicity is a beautiful thing in my opinion, not every game has to look like The Witcher 3 - which personally I didn't enjoy as much as everyone else seemed to - not my thing I guess, but game of the year it wasn't in this gamers opinion, control system is still an abomination and the gui for managing everything leaves too much to be desired. Anyway, back on track, ClusterTruck - one to watch.
